The Vehement Flame eBook

for Maurice won’t need me for eleven years.
But I don’t know what I’d do with my husband
then?” She frowned; a husband would be bothering,
if she had to go and live with Maurice. “Oh,
well, probably my husband will be so old, he’ll
die about the time Maurice’s wife does.”
She had meant to marry Johnny. “But I won’t.
He’s too young. He’s only three years
older ’an me. He might live too long.
I must get an old husband. I’ll tell Johnny
about it to-morrow. I’ll wear mourning,”
she thought; “a long veil! It’s so
interesting. But not over my face—­you
can’t see through it, and it isn’t sense
not to be able to see.” (The test Edith applied
to conduct was always, “Is it sense?”)
“Of course I shall feel badly about my husband;
but I’ve got to take care of Maurice....
Yes; I must get an old one,” she thought.
“I must get one as old as the Bride. If
they’d only waited, the Bride could have married
my husband!”

But this line of thought was too complicated; and,
besides, she had so entirely cheered up that she practically
forgot death. She began to count how much money
her mother owed her for eggs—­which reminded
her to look into the nests; and when, in spite of
a clucking remonstrance, she put her hand under a
feathery breast and touched the hot smoothness of a
new-laid egg, she felt perfectly happy. “I
guess I’ll go and get some floating-island,”
she thought. “Oh, I hope they haven’t
eaten it all up!”

With the egg in her hand, she rushed back to the dining
room, and was reassured by the sight of the big glass
dish, still all creamy yellow and fluffy white.

“Is her name ‘Eleanor’? I think
it’s a perfectly beautiful name! No, I’d
love to give her my room! Mother, she won’t
be as old as you are for eleven years, and that’s
as long as I have been alive. So I won’t
worry about Maurice just yet. Mother, may I have
two helpings? When are they coming?”

“They haven’t been asked yet,” her
father said, grimly. “I’m not going
to concoct a letter, Mary, for a week. Let ’em
worry! Maurice, confound him!—­has
never worried in his life. Everything rolls off
him like water off a duck’s back. It will
do him good to chew nails for a while. I wish
I was asleep!”